It's helpful to know that on most services the maiden name can be thought of as a second password. Only on some credit-related services does the answer actually

It's helpful to know that on most services the maiden name can be thought of as a second password. Only on some credit-related services does the answer actually matter, it seems. And then there are those of us who have hyphenated surnames, where the maiden name is there for all to see. I wish my name weren't hyphenated, but I'm stuck with it. It's always silly when someone asks for maiden name: I've already given it to you... Hyphenated names are also longer, making it a perpetual challenge to fit my name on forms. On standardized tests I was always penalized a minute or more as I spent time scratching in all of the letters of my name. Then there are the fields where the hyphen is not allowed, so I have to enter something that is not my legal name, or even worse are the services that accept the hypthenated name but then transparently change it for storage on the backend. This can make verification fun since there's no telling whether the hyphen was removed, replaced with a space, or some other character entirely. Better hope that you don't have a limited number of attempts to access something. It doesn't fit on credit cards either, making the name field of web payment forms a best guess (I usually put my full name regardless of what is actually on my card). Future parents out there: consider expressing your family pride or sense of nonconformity in a different way. Hyphenated names are a nice gesture, but they're totally impractical in a world where data entry matters. I'm only thankful that I don't also have a unicode character in my name...